Back in the living room, I called out to Kon. “We didn’t get the chance to eat these yesterday, so let’s have our taste-testing session today. Frozen cherries in fermented milk drink… I’m certainly curious what it’s like now.” I showed him the white clumps dotted with red cherries here and there, which I’d transferred into a glass bowl.
Kon’s ears and tail perked up. “Oh! I forgot!” He grinned with brimming excitement, his eyes shining with hopeful curiosity.
I flashed him a smile of my own. “It’s apparently better to wait until it defrosts a little more, but I’m sure it’ll melt a bit while we are busy processing it, so let’s get ready to dig in. I read that it’s nice almost fully frozen as well.”
“Gotcha!” Kon chirped.
Placing the glass bowl on the low table in front of him, I returned to the kitchen again and grabbed two small plates, two relatively big cups, a water pitcher, as well as an ice pick. I put one small plate and one big cup in front of my seat and Kon’s. Next, I put down the water pitcher full of water onto the table with a small thud. Finally, I held up the ice pick at the ready.
I’d already broken up the white ice into smaller pieces, and now, I used the ice pick to stab the pieces to make them even smaller. Whenever I excavated cherries from the ice, I moved them onto the small plates. Once there was only ice left from the chunk, I moved it into our cups. Using this method, I separated the cherries and the fermented milk drink.
“Judging by their looks, the cherries haven’t lost any water content,” I observed. “As for the fermented milk drink… Yeah, there are parts with a bit of cherry red, but it doesn’t seem like the juice of the fruit seeped out and mixed with the ice. If the frozen cherries stay this way for a long time, I have to agree that it’s a good way of preserving them.”
I quickly sorted through the white ice chunks as I spoke. Kon was staring at me the entire time, and it appeared that he’d finally run out of patience, because he picked up a single excavated cherry from his plate and plopped it into his mouth. He moved his jaw up and down, then spat the pit onto a small plate. Beaming, he reported, “It’s yummy!”
Following his example, I also threw a single cherry into my mouth. Mm… A nice crunchy texture, a pleasant chill, and the flavors of a cherry stimulated my taste buds. It didn’t feel like it had lost any of its flavor or richness. If it maintained this flavor profile even after thawing, I could declare this as an ideal and flawless preservation method.
I could also enjoy the fermented milk drink after it melted—once I diluted it, I would have a delicious drink with a slight hint of cherries, which sounded wonderful. All right, I think this is a success. I should make a little more than I initially planned so that I can enjoy cherries even after cherry season ends.
After that, Kon and I waited for the cherries and the milky ice to thaw completely. But we weren’t doing a very good job at it. I didn’t know whether it was because we’d already fallen to temptation once or whether the cherries were simply that tantalizing, but neither of us could stop ourselves from sneakily picking up cherries from time to time and eating before they were ready.
However, we somehow held out until the cherries thawed, even if our gluttony got the better of us occasionally. Finally, we could eat the cherries without restraint.
I chewed carefully. Neither the flavors nor richness had changed one bit. As for the texture, I could tell that it was preserved extremely well. They had traces of the fermented milk drink on the surface, which affected their taste, but I could solve that problem easily by wiping them thoroughly or giving them a rinse. Scratch a little more, I should make a lot more. I can store them in the warehouse freezer unit and maybe even enjoy cherries all year round. That doesn’t sound bad at all.
As for the fermented milk drink, once it was completely thawed, it didn’t have any problems either. Of course, you couldn’t avoid having some of the cherry flavor transferring to the drink, but it became a nice subtle undertone that only made it better.
I nodded to myself as I kept eating. “Cherry jam and cherry and syrup are splendid, but I have to say that this method is quite helpful because you can preserve the cherries raw. You can eat them directly or process them first… Sheesh, freezing food is incredible.”
Kon nodded profusely and moved his mouth single-mindedly.
I continued, “Jam and fruit preserved in syrup both have their own unique charms…and this does too. I guess the best thing to do is to keep all their differences in mind and make good use of every method available to me.”
Kon, who’d accumulated a small collection of cherry pits in his cheeks, spat them out one after another onto a small plate and voiced his opinion. “I like jam and these frozen ones, so I vote for that too! I dunno much about the syrup version though.”
I blinked. “Huh? Wait… Oh!” Realization dawned on me. “Right, that reminds me, I don’t think I’ve used my homemade fruits in syrup to make anything yet, have I? Shaved ice is the best… But do you want to try drinking it as fruit soda right now?”
That caught Kon’s interest. “What? Shaved ice?! I wanna eat shaved ice! I want to have both soda and fruit ice!” he exclaimed. “It’s definitely good if you’re the one making them, Mikura!”
“Hm…” I furrowed my brows slightly. “The weather isn’t hot enough for shaved ice yet though… I also haven’t made ice with such plans in mind, so I probably can’t make too much—”
“That’s okay!” Kon interrupted enthusiastically. “I still wanna try it!”